The March of the Ten Thousand (401–399 BCE) was a legendary 1,500-mile retreat of Greek mercenaries deep inside the Persian Empire, chronicled by the Athenian leader and philosopher Xenophon in his classic work Anabasis.
The Expedition and Betrayal
• The Employer: Hired by the Persian prince Cyrus the Younger to help overthrow his brother, King Artaxerxes II.
• The Crisis: Cyrus died at the Battle of Cunaxa in 401 BCE, rendering the Greek army victorious in combat yet strategically stranded.
• The Treachery: Persian satrap Tissaphernes invited the Greek generals to a feast and executed them, leaving 10,000 soldiers leaderless in hostile territory.
The Perilous Journey Home
• New Leadership: The soldiers elected new commanders, including Xenophon, who stepped up to guide the desperate retreat.
• The Route North: Instead of heading back through predictable southern routes, they marched north toward the safety of the Black Sea.
• The Hardships: The troops fought off continuous cavalry attacks, extreme winter snows, starvation, and hostile mountain tribes.
Historical Impact
• Endurance: More than 80% of the original force safely reached home.
• Legacy: The journey proved that a disciplined Greek army could carve a path through the heart of the Persian Empire, directly inspiring Alexander the Great's later conquests.
“Band on the Run
By Robert L. O'Connell
Simon & Schuster, 256 pages, $29
The "Odyssey" may be a thrilling Greek tale of homecoming by sea, but the true story of a Greek homecoming by land -- even without witches and monsters -- offers other delights to readers of ancient history. The episode is known today as the March of the Ten Thousand (401-399 B.C.), a grueling expedition by Greek mercenaries into what is now Iraq.
Their journey deep into hostile territory and back has been recounted by many writers. The first was Xenophon, one of the participants, who wrote years after the ordeal and titled his account "Anabasis" (roughly, "The Journey Inland"). Seldom, though, has this story had as wise and witty a narrator as Robert O'Connell, a military historian whose sharp-edged style is evident right from the cheeky title of his book "Band on the Run."
The Ten Thousand started out as a body somewhat larger than its name implies. It was made up of more than 13,000 soldiers of fortune, recruited from many Greek cities by Cyrus the Younger, a Persian royal, with promises of high pay. Resentful that his older brother, Artaxerxes II, had inherited their father's throne, and recognizing that Greek infantry tactics were superior to the methods used by other nations, Cyrus led his force deep into the vast Persian Empire.
At the Battle of Cunaxa (near modern-day Baghdad), in the late summer of 401 B.C., the Greeks proved that their style of combat, arrayed in the close-knit phalanx formation, could best anything the Persians could field.
But before his forces could secure a victory, Cyrus charged his brother recklessly and was killed in the scuffle. The Greek army was orphaned, without provisions or protection, a very long way from home.
A standoff ensued in which, as Mr. O'Connell observes, both sides were "spooked by the situation." The Greeks had the advantage in force but the Persians could block their passage, harass them or leave them bereft of food. After a Persian subterfuge stripped the Greeks of their leadership, it seemed to many of the Ten Thousand that the situation was hopeless. But Xenophon, up to that moment a common soldier, was chosen as corps commander. He reorganized his force, then began to lead the Greeks northward following paths they hoped would lead toward the Black Sea, nearly 1,000 miles distant.
Xenophon, setting down his memories of the long march decades later, cast the tale as a heroic saga of survival (survival for most; nearly a quarter of the corps was lost on the journey due to skirmishes with pursuing Persians, battles with mountain tribes and frostbite-inducing cold). For Mr. O'Connell, that view is not wrong but is glaringly incomplete.
While he admires the adaptations and innovations that helped the Greeks get through, he is unsparing about the brutal tactics the "pirate army" adopted as it struggled to provision itself, and on the moral deterioration of Xenophon and his followers.
Mr. O'Connell argues that, besides moving in the direction of home, the chief activity of the Greek army was "the acquisition of humans." Driven by greed and by lust for both women and boys, the Greeks took captives from whatever people they met, intending to enslave them en route and then, perhaps, sell them to others. At a point when the generals decreed that thousands of noncombatants should be left behind in hostile territory, the author notes with dismay that the soldiery raised no objection.
"Other armies have certainly been parasitic," Mr. O'Connell writes, though most have had a separate political motivation. "This one lived for itself, developing an economic mechanism based on human enslavement, which allowed it to become self-sustaining." The emergence of such a force, cut off so far from any allies or routes to safety, was thus "an unlikely, unprecedented, and unrepeated development in human history."
Even after leaving dependents behind, the Ten Thousand were chronically short of food, and their efforts to feed themselves becomes one of this book's driving themes. The corps was far more numerous than the populations of the villages on its route; its ravages cleaned out food stores that local peoples counted on for survival. When desperate locals tried to protect their supplies by moving them inside strongholds, the concentration of foodstuffs only drew more vicious attacks.
"Band on the Run" is less a triumphal tale than a civilizational tragedy. Greeks who might have led decent lives tending their own crops and flocks were pillaging those of others, becoming in aggregate what Mr. O'Connell describes as "a near-perfect predator." The example they set by monetizing Greek military talent would lure many others into the freebooting life and ultimately lead, seven decades later, to the enormous plundering raids of Alexander the Great.
Returned to largely Greek terrain as they neared the Aegean in the autumn of 400 B.C., the corps found that fellow Greeks were so afraid of its might that the gates of cities were barred against the army. The remainder of the original crew contracted to help a vengeful Thracian king destroy his neighbors. Xenophon became in essence a mercenary lord, somewhat like the condottieri of Renaissance Italy. He ultimately found a new job for the band, helping Sparta prosecute a campaign against the Persians in Asia Minor.
Mr. O'Connell relates this tale with verve, but also with impressive accuracy. His book is more than a gripping historical narrative. It gives unique insight into the meaning of history, the moral problem of military dominance by one culture over others and the corrosive effect -- in the Hellenic world as elsewhere -- of the allure of money.
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Mr. Romm is the author of "Since You're Mortal: Life Lessons From the Lost Greek Plays."” [1]
If behavior of Socrates’ pupil Xenophon is a result of Socrates’ teachings, then Athenians were right to take Socrates to court and kill him – he destroyed the moral basis of previous human life. Xenophon's writings show he promoted virtue and civic duty, his actions were opposite. Actions, not words count.
1. An Army Far From Home. Romm, James. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 28 July 2026: A13.
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